The introduction of 3D-ready LCD TVs marks a major policy shift for Panasonic. The brand has been a vociferous advocate of plasma tech for 3D, yet now it’s hawking a pair of LED backlit 3D screens, a 32in model and the 37incher featured here. The justification, the company will tell you, is to provide a smaller Active Shutter solution for gamers. But Panasonic’s aspirations are far broader than that. It wants a slice of the rapidly expanding LED pie.
Panasonic’s TX-L37D30 utilises an LCD panel rather than plasma to deliver its 3D picture
The TX-L37D30 is certainly well-appointed. It has both Freeview HD and Freesat HD tuners, plus a generic DVB-S/S2 satellite alternative, and sports the brand’s new Viera Connect IPTV portal. A significant upgrade on Panasonic’s old Viera Cast channel, this is a cloud-based service designed to take advantage of the booming apps market. Read the rest of this entry »
Do you watch too much TV? You see, it’s not just the hours you put in: you risk the accusation that telly means too much to you if your screen dominates your living room, and therefore your life. It’s a matter of taste, but arguably a 55in screen is pretty much the limit for respectable viewing and Toshiba’s snazzy SV series can overpower even a substantial-sized room.
Giving it large: Toshiba’s Regza 55SV685DB
Still, size, we know, isn’t everything. Perhaps the screen will redeem itself and overcome this shaky start. Please note, though, that this is a massively heavy TV and way too much for one person to manage. Move it and you’ll notice that you can’t avoid handling the screen. That’s because while other TVs have a bezel frame around the LCD, this model had a flush edge-to-edge display. This doesn’t mean the image runs right up to the corners, merely that there’s an overlay called a Full Crystal Panel which covers the entire front of the television.
Toshiba says this front panel improves colour fidelity and image contrast. Don’t worry about those unavoidable finger smears – the makers have thoughtfully included a small cleaning cloth. The appearance of the Regza SV series is what Toshiba calls Deep Lagoon, where a deep black colour fades gradually to white. Like it or not, is a matter personal taste.
This is a premium television, full of advanced features such as LED backlighting with local dimming, fast 200Hz refresh rate, image processing from the ‘MetaBrain’ engine and Dolby Volume, which is designed to manage sound output variations when you switch channels, for instance. Read the rest of this entry »
Review LED backlighting is all the rage at the moment; it can dramatically improve the contrast ratio of LCD panels, helping them towards the deep blacks seen on plasma displays. But many of the sets available at the moment, including the LG we recently reviewed, use LEDs that aren’t individually addressable – so it’s still really all or nothing.
philips’ 9704 offers ‘Pro LED’ backlighting, the better to distinguish it from the presumably amateur type on other sets. That means that the backlighting is split into 274 individual segments, each of which is independently controlled. Other selling points include the latest version of the Ambilight system, wireless connectivity, built in web browsing and DLNA support.
Users outside the UK may be able to take advantage of the MPEG4 decoding, and the CI+ slot too, but for those of us in Blighty, an external source of some sort will be needed if you want to watch HD programming. SD Freeview and analogue tuners are, of course, included. Compared to some recent TVs from the competition, the philips is positively chunky, with the rear panel curving round to the front, and providing sufficient depth for both the Ambilight system and decent size speakers. Read the rest of this entry »
